CIA Official Predicts North Korean Provocation on Columbus Day

A top CIA official for the Korean Peninsula warned Wednesday that the U.S. should be ready for a new provocation by North Korea on Columbus Day on Oct. 9, which coincides with the anniversary of the founding of the political party that governs in Pyongyang.

"Stand by your phones," Yong Suk Lee, deputy assistant director of the CIA's Korea Mission Center, said while speaking at a conference organized by the agency at The George Washington University.

...

"The last person who wants conflict on the peninsula is actually Kim Jong Un," Lee said, adding that Kim, like all authoritarian leaders, wishes to rule for a long time and die in his own bed. "We have a tendency in this country and elsewhere to underestimate the conservatism that runs in these authoritarian regimes."

President Donald Trump, who continues to utter and tweet threats against North Korea, will visit South Korea, Japan and China on a trip throughout Asia in November.

Over the weekend, Trump said his predecessors in the White House have talked to North Korea for the past 25 years without success. “Sorry, but only one thing will work!” Trump tweeted Saturday.

“What the heck is that?” said Jeffrey Lewis, an analyst at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies. “You just can’t parse any of it.”

too

Trump's veiled threats raise the risk of miscalculation by leading Kim to think the United States is about to attack, Lewis said. If he feared an attack was imminent, he might order a pre-emptive attack.

“It’s bad signaling because people will fill in the blanks,” Lewis said.

Saturday’s tweet followed equally ominous comments from Trump last week. On Thursday evening with a gathering of top military brass at the White House, he told reporters the group represented the “calm before the storm.” When questioned, he declined to elaborate.

Trump and the USA have PROVEN time and again incapable and inept at bafoon style military pre-emptive strikes against even the smallest of nations. Making things consistently worse, killing countless innocent people and getting us deeper in debt.

Shit, Trump couldn't even deal with a natural disaster in Puerto Rico, what the fuck are we going to do with the massive humanitarian mess we'll create in North Korea if we attack?

We need better leaders. Much much better leaders and we need to impeach Trump before he creates a mess we will not be able to unravel.

"The UK would be part of a united global coalition" in the fight against North Korea, a Royal Navy source told the Mail. "We would see what support we could give."

Earlier this month, UK Defence Secretary Michael Fallon called for an increase in the UK's defence spending, expressed support for the US's efforts to contain Pyongyang, and threatened to use Britain's nuclear weapons against the country.

He told the Conservative ...Conference: "North Korea’s illegal testing underlines just how irresponsible it would be to scrap the deterrent that protects us. It is all very well [Labour leader] Jeremy Corbyn saying he would never use nuclear weapons but Manchester and London are closer to Pyongyang than Los Angeles.

"Being prepared, in the most extreme circumstances, to use nuclear weapons is what separates a Prime Minister from a pacifist."

"The UK would be part of a united global coalition" in the fight against North Korea, a Royal Navy source told the Mail. "We would see what support we could give."

Earlier this month, UK Defence Secretary Michael Fallon called for an increase in the UK's defence spending, expressed support for the US's efforts to contain Pyongyang, and threatened to use Britain's nuclear weapons against the country.

He told the Conservative ...Conference: "North Korea’s illegal testing underlines just how irresponsible it would be to scrap the deterrent that protects us. It is all very well [Labour leader] Jeremy Corbyn saying he would never use nuclear weapons but Manchester and London are closer to Pyongyang than Los Angeles.

"Being prepared, in the most extreme circumstances, to use nuclear weapons is what separates a Prime Minister from a pacifist."

"The UK would be part of a united global coalition" in the fight against North Korea, a Royal Navy source told the Mail. "We would see what support we could give."

Earlier this month, UK Defence Secretary Michael Fallon called for an increase in the UK's defence spending, expressed support for the US's efforts to contain Pyongyang, and threatened to use Britain's nuclear weapons against the country.

He told the Conservative ...Conference: "North Korea’s illegal testing underlines just how irresponsible it would be to scrap the deterrent that protects us. It is all very well [Labour leader] Jeremy Corbyn saying he would never use nuclear weapons but Manchester and London are closer to Pyongyang than Los Angeles.

"Being prepared, in the most extreme circumstances, to use nuclear weapons is what separates a Prime Minister from a pacifist."

Over the weekend, Trump said his predecessors in the White House have talked to North Korea for the past 25 years without success. “Sorry, but only one thing will work!” Trump tweeted Saturday.

“What the heck is that?” said Jeffrey Lewis, an analyst at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies. “You just can’t parse any of it.”

too

Trump's veiled threats raise the risk of miscalculation by leading Kim to think the United States is about to attack, Lewis said. If he feared an attack was imminent, he might order a pre-emptive attack.

“It’s bad signaling because people will fill in the blanks,” Lewis said.

Saturday’s tweet followed equally ominous comments from Trump last week. On Thursday evening with a gathering of top military brass at the White House, he told reporters the group represented the “calm before the storm.” When questioned, he declined to elaborate.

US-South Korean war plans reportedly stolen by North Korean hackers

Lee Cheol-hee, a member of South Korea's ruling Democratic Party, told local media outlets that the documents were taken in a September 2016 hack of the country's Defense Ministry. The ministry would not comment for ABC News, citing national security concerns. ABC News could not reach Lee for comment.

The sensitive documents reportedly contained U.S.-South Korean plans for a decapitation strike against North Korea — removing its leadership — a plan that has reportedly angered dictator Kim Jong Un.

About 80 percent of the material stolen has not yet been identified. The stolen trove totals about 235 gigabytes of data, according to reports.

“And, you know, [President Trump] doesn’t realize that, you know, that we could be heading towards World War III with the kinds of comments that he’s making.”

That remarkably candid quote comes from Senator Bob Corker’s interview with the New York Times’ Jonathan Martin on Sunday. Corker is a sitting senator, a Republican, and the chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, one of the most influential committees in Washington. In the same interview, Sen. Corker said, “I know for a fact that every single day at the White House it’s a situation of trying to contain him.”

In August, Corker told reporters in Tennessee that Trump “has not yet been able to demonstrate the stability, nor some of the competence that he needs to demonstrate in order to be successful.” And over the weekend, in response to a barrage of Trump insults on Twitter, Corker responded that it was a “shame the “White House has become an adult day care center.”

I must confess the emotions I felt when I watched Sen. Corker tell reporters, “I think Secretary Tillerson, Secretary Mattis, and Chief of Staff Kelly are those people who help separate our country from chaos” — I was afraid for my own children, and all children in the U.S., including those whose parents voted for Donald Trump.

All of our children are in great jeopardy now, because of Donald Trump’s serious intellectual incapacities, dangerous emotional immaturity, and an amorality which suggests a complete moral emptiness and a lack of any ability to make moral judgements.

Now this intellectual, emotional, and moral failure as a human being has his finger on the nuclear button. And that is the greatest threat to America and to the world today. Will other senators stand up for their country and our national security, as Sen. Corker has? How many Bob Corkers are there — how many Republicans will continue to make their Faustian bargain with a president who will promote the economic interests of their wealthy donors?

And will America’s religious leaders stand up and speak for the nation against the threats that a President Trump now poses? Or will they make their own Faustian bargains with the president who gives them access and influence into a state newly committed to their “religious right” political agendas — devoid of any concerns for the poor, racial justice, refugees and immigrants, the environment or, indeed, the Christian call to peace-making and conflict resolution.

President Trump reportedly told national security of...ls in July that he wanted to increase the U.S. nuclear arsenal tenfold — and this week, has threatened NBC News for r... the story, suggesting they should lose their “licenses” to report the news. So the well-documented story on the nuclear threat Trump poses has now turned into another presidential threat, this time to the First Amendment. Here, as with this nation’s nuclear policies, Donald Trump seems not to understand. Complaining about press coverage is a long-standing presidential habit, but no American president has ever so blatantly attacked the press and so directly challenged the First Amendment to the Constitution.

After hearing that the stockpile of U.S. nuclear weapons has been steadily reduced by international treaties and mutual nuclear obligations — something most Americans, let alone national political leaders from both parties, already knew — Trump was upset, and said he wanted to increase our stockpile to 1960s levels, as well as increasing troop levels and other military equipment.

From morningsong quote above, “And, you know, [President Trump] doesn’t realize that, you know, that we could be heading towards World War III with the kinds of comments that he’s making.”

You can add this into the mix:

What Trump's move on Iran means for the US and the world

Updated 1:33 PM ET, Fri October 13, 2017

President Donald Trump will not kill the Iran nuclear deal on Friday.

But when he declares that it has not been in US interests, he will consign the proudest legacy achievement of President Barack Obama's second term to a deeply uncertain future -- and could even set off a train of consequences that could eventually lead to its collapse.

Should that be the case, Trump, or one of his successors in the Oval Office, may one day face the fateful choice that the deal was supposed to circumvent -- whether to use military force to stop the Islamic Republic racing toward the bomb.

The President has fumed against what he has called a "very bad deal" and an "embarrassment" to the country despite all available evidence that Iran is complying with terms which imposed limits on its nuclear program in return for a lifting of sanctions that had crippled its economy.

"I think it was one of the most incompetently drawn deals I've ever seen," Trump told Fox News' Sean Hannity on Wednesday.

Trump's move, which had been previewed to CNN by government sources and foreign diplomats, will give Congress 60 days to decide whether to reimpose sanctions lifted under the terms of the agreement.

Schoolchildren play in the water in Wonsan City, North Korea.KCNA | ReutersSchoolchildren play in the water in Wonsan City, North Korea.In the seaside city of Wonsan, North Korean families cook up barbecues on the beach, go fishing, and eat royal jelly flavor ice cream in the summer breeze. For their leader Kim Jong Un, the resort is a summer retreat, a future temple to tourism, and a good place to test missiles.

He is rebuilding the city of 360,000 people and wants to turn it into a billion-dollar tourist hotspot. At the same time, he has launched nearly 40 missiles from the area, as part of his accelerated tests of North Korea's nuclear deterrent.

"It may sound crazy to outsiders to fire missiles from a place he wants to develop economically, but that's how Kim Jong Un runs his country," said Lim Eul-chul, an expert on the North Korean economy at Kyungnam University in South Korea.

This combination of tourism and nuclear weapons is emblematic of Kim Jong Un's strategy for survival, say researchers and people familiar with the project.

North Korea's development plans for Wonsan have mushroomed since they were first announced in 2014. Examined here in detail for the first time, they run across 160 pages in nearly 30 brochures produced by the Wonsan Zone Development Corporation in Korean, Chinese, Russian and English in 2015 and 2016.

Tourism is one of a shrinking range of North Korean cash sources not targeted by United Nations sanctions, and the brochures advertise to foreign investors some $1.5 billion worth of potential ventures in the Wonsan Special Tourist Zone, an area covering more than 400 square km (150 square miles). Kim has already constructed a ski resort and a new airport there.

According to one brochure, the Zone includes approximately 140 historical relics, 10 sand beaches, 680 tourist attractions, four mineral springs, several bathing resorts and natural lakes and "more than 3.3 million tons of mud with therapeutic properties for neuralgia and colitis."

The projects that Kim is inviting investors to help build include a $7.3 million department store, a $197 million city centre development, and a $123 million golf course (including a $62.5 million fee to lease the land).

Earlier this year Kim sent 16 of his officials to Spain to get ideas for Wonsan. They visited Marina d'Or, one of the Mediterranean country's biggest holiday complexes, and the Terra Mitica (Mythical Land) theme park in Benidorm. Terra Mitica caters to fans "of extreme sensations," according to its website.

"They saw such places with their own eyes and filmed some of them," said a spokesman at the North Korean embassy in Madrid. Both parks confirmed the visits; a spokeswoman for Terra Mitica said the North Koreans were impressed by its themesy to to including the ancient civilizations of Egypt, Greece and Rome.

No major foreign partner has said they will back Kim's Wonsan projects. The new airport, completed in 2015, has yet to open to international flights. America recently banned its citizens from visiting North Korea. International sanctions now ban all joint ventures with the state.

Even so, the plan is strategically vital for Kim, say former North Korean diplomats. When he came to power in 2011, he inherited a society officially run by the military but whose people survived largely on black market dealings. On paper, North Korea is a state-run economy; but in fact, seven in 10 North Koreans depend on private trade to live,

When North Korean hackers tried to steal $1 billion from the New York Federal Reserve last year, only a spelling error stopped them. They were digitally looting an account of the Bangladesh Central Bank, when bankers grew suspicious about a withdrawal request that had misspelled “foundation” as “fandation.”

Even so, Kim Jong-un’s minions still got away with $81 million in that heist.

Then only sheer luck enabled a 22-year-old British hacker to defuse the biggest North Korean cyberattack to date, a ransomware attack last May that failed to generate much cash but brought down hundreds of thousands of computers across dozens of countries — and briefly crippled Britain’s National Health Service.

...

For decades Iran and North Korea have shared missile technology, and American intelligence agencies have long sought evidence of secret cooperation in the nuclear arena. In cyber, the Iranians taught the North Koreans something important: When confronting an enemy that has internet-connected banks, trading systems, oil and water pipelines, dams, hospitals, and entire cities, the opportunities to wreak havoc are endless.

By midsummer 2012, Iran’s hackers, still recovering from an American and Israeli-led cyberattack on Iran’s nuclear enrichment operations, found an easy target in Saudi Aramco, Saudi Arabia’s state-owned oil company and the world’s most valuable company.

That August, Iranian hackers flipped a kill switch at precisely 11:08 a.m., unleashing a simple wiper virus onto 30,000 Aramco computers and 10,000 servers that would destroy data, and replace it with a partial image of a burning American flag. The damage was tremendous.

Seven months later, during joint military exercises between American and South Korean forces, North Korean hackers, operating from computers inside China, deployed a very similar cyberweapon against computer networks at three major South Korean banks and South Korea’s two largest broadcasters. Like Iran’s Aramco attacks, the North Korean attacks on South Korean targets used wiping malware to eradicate data and paralyze their business operations.

Kim is now busy finishing the tourist hotel his grandfather started in the 80s, which wasn't finished because of lack of funds, now suddenly in the midst of all these sanctions, Kim has somehow found the funds to build tourist attractions????

(CNN)Over the summer and into fall, the standoff with North Korea had settled into a familiar if dangerous pattern. US officials issued vague warnings that they could take the peninsula to war, while North Korea steadily advanced its nuclear and missile programs.

Throughout, the military situation has remained remarkably stable: neither side has fired on the other or mobilized its forces for a full scale war, and to this date, provocations have been confined to tests and talk.

It is not Pyongyang, but Washington, that appears determined to push this standoff into the military domain.

This month, US forces in and around Korea made several provocative moves apparently designed to provoke Pyongyang and the North Korean regime's allies in Beijing.

US and South Korean forces are holding live-fire naval exercises in the waters around the peninsula, involving the USS Ronald Reagan carrier strike group, nominally to practice against special operations forces.

US forces will also practice evacuating American noncombatants from South Korea. Though this training occurs regularly, it could be misinterpreted when it occurs in parallel with other forceful signals.Furthermore, two submarines have visited the Korean Peninsula, including the USS Michigan, a guided missile submarine.

If the US minded its own damn business and tended to its own, then what would be theproblem with North Korean nuclear armament? If I have a gun, and you have a gun, but we both agree to live by the "don't start no mess, won't be no mess" mantra, then by all means, grab all the bullets your pretty little heart desires, or is this a simplistic understand-ing of US policy and human history and psychology?

If the US minded its own damn business and tended to its own, then what would be theproblem with North Korean nuclear armament? If I have a gun, and you have a gun, but we both agree to live by the "don't start no mess, won't be no mess" mantra, then by all means, grab all the bullets your pretty little heart desires, or is this a simplistic understand-ing of US policy and human history and psychology?

I think it's a issue of South Korea vs. North Korea, with the US playing Big Brother in general. South Korea doesn't have nuclear armament nor does Japan, so they don't have a gun yet dude was firing bullets over their heads, screwing with their citizens.

"perpetuated" by the media and politics to get people like you knee jerking and reeled in with click bait.There is a difference.

Oh, another one of those the entire media is lying people.

Ok.

what? Pick up a dictionary.

You haven't the foggiest clue what I'm reading. I see those over the top headlines splashed all over too. Yet there are still more sources than those. Either everybody's lying or their not. Flippant one liners don't change what's going on.